Malware Exploiting Cloud Providers

Criminals are not so different from you and me. They want easy, fast, scalable, affordable cloud services and web hosting, just like us.

Oh sure, sometimes they want to get their service entirely for free, so they'll compromise the domain of a legitimate, paying customer; but they'll also pay for the service themselves sometimes, just like us. So, according to a new report by Solutionary, criminals use enterprise-class services like Amazon EC2, just like us.

Solutionary's "Quarterly Threat Intelligence Report" states that Amazon hosted 16 percent of the malware distribution channels -- more than any other ISP or hosting provider. Also on the top 10 list were GoDaddy (14%), Akamai (9%), and Google (6%). It's not only the cost, simplicity, and scalability that attracts malware authors, criminal hackers, and bot-herders to these services; there are more sinister benefits. From the report:

Use of major hosting providers, such as Amazon or Google, allows malware distributors to originate traffic from trusted address spaces that will not be blocked by geographic blacklists and would not likely draw suspicion based on IP address alone.

In fact, more than 40 of the anti-virus tools tested by Solutionary were unable to detect some of these malware samples.

None of this should come as a huge surprise. We've seen cloud services being used by crafty criminals before. In 2009, security researchers discovered that a Zeus botnet command-and-control station was running on an Amazon EC2 instance. Amazon located it and shut it down, and it has a system in place to collect and investigate vulnerability reports.

However, the scope of the problem may be a bit surprising. And it's never comforting to think about your own public cloud-based resources sharing server space with cybercriminals, for several reasons.

Theoretically, if a criminal can bust out of its own cloud instance (virtual machine) and into the back-end systems, it might be able to reach into other cloud instances residing on the same server, through the back-end. And theoretically, if law enforcement chooses to seize servers they suspect of being used for criminal purposes (even though that would be relatively pointless in the case of a cloud provider's servers), it might affect your ability to access your own cloud instances that happened to be hanging out on that server at the time. Cloud providers have taken steps to combat these troubles, but they're not inconceivable.

Obviously, we want cloud providers to responsibly monitor their systems in order to find malicious actors abusing their services. However we don't want them to be too sneaky and snoopy; we don't want them barging into our own cloud instances and rifling through all our stuff.

What do you think? Do these findings cause you any disquiet? Do they alter your decisions about your own company's use of the cloud? Are you at all surprised? Do you think your security staff is savvy enough to detect malware coming from familiar IP addresses that the anti-virus software might not even detect? Let us know in the comments below.

With the right mobility tools security and privacy advances can be accelerated in offering opportunities. Security solutions and tools should drive overall focus on the organizations outcome. Having more standardized tools that leverage both privacy and security advances best.

I have to second myself with eethtworkz. IT pros can work out the system and even the security out making hackers and malware attackers have a brow of sweat, but with so much cost to consumer and cost to company, and so less resources (except for the R&D sectors), IT guys can only do so much.

Amazon's data security terminals were at risk because they pay the inventory management system more attention than giving the administrative network the same. Coming to the question of whether the cloud space is safe with all these malware attackers about, then the answer is NO. With virtualisation on its way we can ensure that the cloud computing genre will cover most of the web based business models by the end of 2017. And this can trigger even bigger attacks on the system.

@eethtworkz "I don't think you will find anyone who will Argue against the Need for more Security in IT. Problem is who will foot the Bill?" Tough question. I suppose that security is one thing that should be charged to the CIO's budget... but while that might endear the CIO to line-of-business managers, it might not endear the CIO to the CFO/CEO.

@eethtworkz "I blame IT Security also partially for this issue;we don't spend enough time Drilling Security issues into the heads of Business and especially Demonstrating ROI effectively and especially in Terms of Loss of Company Prestige and Brand Value." I think that's a fair criticism. The security community has had a hard time demonstrating ROI, and people only think of it as a cost center. They equate it with insurance -- something that you have to buy, but you don't want it.

Most IT Folks don't get Security(forget about Guys outside IT and especially Finance which writes the Checks for now).

I blame IT Security also partially for this issue;we don't spend enough time Drilling Security issues into the heads of Business and especially Demonstrating ROI effectively and especially in Terms of Loss of Company Prestige and Brand Value.

The blogs and comments posted on EnterpriseEfficiency.com do not reflect the views of TechWeb, EnterpriseEfficiency.com, or its sponsors. EnterpriseEfficiency.com, TechWeb, and its sponsors do not assume responsibility for any comments, claims, or opinions made by authors and bloggers. They are no substitute for your own research and should not be relied upon for trading or any other purpose.

Enterprise Efficiency is looking for engaged readers to moderate the message boards on this site. Engage in high-IQ conversations with IT industry leaders; earn kudos and perks. Interested? E-mail: [email protected]

Dell's Efficiency Modeling ToolThe major problem facing the CIO is how to measure the effectiveness of the IT department. Learn how Dell’s Efficiency Modeling Tool gives the CIO two clear, powerful numbers: Efficiency Quotient and Impact Quotient. These numbers can be transforma¬tive not only to the department, but to the entire enterprise. Read the full report

Now that TGen has broken new ground in genomic research by using Dell's storage, cloud, and high-performance computing solutions, the company discusses what will come next for it and for personalized medicine.

The Translational Genomics Research Institute wanted to save lives, but its efforts were hobbled by immense computing challenges related to collecting, processing, sharing, and storing enormous amounts of data.

Office and personal productivity tools come in a first-class and coach flavor set, but what makes the difference is primarily little things that most users won't encounter. What's the big issue in using something other than Office, and can you get around it?

We really don't want an "Internet of Everything" but even building an Internet of Everythinguseful means setting some ground rules to insure there's value in the process and that costs and risks are minimized.

Google's Chrome OS has a lot of potential value and a lot of recent press, but it still needs something to make it more than a thin client. It needs cloud integration, it needs extended APIs via web services, and it needs to suck it up and support a hard drive.

On a recent African trip I saw examples of the value of the cloud in developing nations, for educational and community development programs. We could build on this, but not only in developing economies, because these same programs are often under-supported even in first-world countries.

VMware's debate with Cisco on SDN might finally create a fusion between an SDN view that's all about software and another that's all about network equipment. That would be good for every enterprise considering the cloud and SDN.

Wearing a bulky, oversized watch is good training for the next phase in wristwatches: the Internet-enabled, connected watch. Why the smartphone-tethered connected watch makes sense, plus Ivan demos an entirely new concept for the "smart watch."

Cloud storage costs are determined primarily by the rate at which files are changed and the possibility of concurrent access/update. If you can structure your storage use to optimize these factors you can cut costs, perhaps to zero.

The Internet has evolved into a machine for drumming up a chorus of "Happy Birthday" messages, from family, friends, friends of friends who you added on Facebook, random people that you circled on G+, and increasingly, automated bots. Enough already.